מתרגם ליוונית חריף שכל אך כבד שמיעה

מאת: אבנר רמו

In the Book of Samuel we read about: אפרתי בן-צוף - “the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite” (1 Sam 1:1).The Greek translator wrote here: “in Nesib Ephraim” and it appears that he believed that בן-צוף (ben-tsuph) is a misspelled and mis-divided בנציב (benetsiv) - “in the office.”

In the Book of Kings we read: ונציב אחד, אשר בארץ - “and one officer that was [over all the officers] in the land” (1 Ki 4:19). The Greeks translated ונציב אחד (unetsiv ekhad) as “and one nasiph.” It appears that although the Greek translator just transliterated the Hebrew נציב (netsiv), he somehow exchanged the bilabials ב (v) and פ (ph).